(Part 1) Frank wants to get Vinnie back on the job, so he assigns him to a routine case investigating hit man Roger Lococco [Vinny: “What’s a Roger Lococco?”], unknowingly dropping Vinnie into the middle of a case that has international repercussions. After winning Roger’s confidence, Vinnie is asked to work for Mel [who has an obsession with Thomas Malthus] and Susan Profitt, a brother and sister team who run a worldwide drugs and munitions organization.

(Part 2) Convinced an associate’s bride-to-be is a Fed, Mel insists he postpone the wedding. Insulted, Paco brings up a death squad to hit Mel, then arranges to kidnap Susan to force Mel to give him all of their drug action. Vinnie and Roger rescue Susan. Frank finds out Paco’s bride was an undercover CIA agent. Guest Cast: Paco Bazos: Franklyn Seales

Vinnie has second thoughts about the case and tells Frank he wants out. When he goes to Mel to resign, Mel offers him a chance to take over his worldwide drug operation. The catch: Vinnie must go to Tennessee and take it back from the middle men who have seized control. [The gang is wiped out in a gun battle with Roger and the farmer they have moved in on.] Guest Cast: Russell Haynes: Mark Pillow; Ernest Haynes: Rance Howard

Player to Be Named Now
(Original airdate: 1/25/88)
Writer: Stephen Kronish; Director: Ron Rapiel

Mel’s desire to buy a baseball franchise is two-fold: he wants to play on it, and he wants to take it away from an old business associate who cheated him in a Mexican drug deal. Vinnie is fighting his growing feelings for Susan while trying to discourage Jacqueline from getting reinvolved with all the debauchery on the Hotei. Guest Cast: Jacqueline Devries: Jane Brucker; Eddie Van Platt: Jon Polito

When some of his munitions contacts begin drying up, Mel decides to blackmail a [French] Deputy Minister of Defense into supplying him with the weapons he needs. After setting Vinnie up to be arrested for espionage, Susan makes it up to him by letting him go to bed with her. When Vinnie mysteriously comes up with the documents Mel needs, he arouses Roger’s suspicions. Guest Cast: Jacques Lizot: Paul Verdier

Hiding out in Vancouver after the fall of the Steelgrave empire, Aldo Baglia sees a photo of Vinnie in the paper and decides to even the score, sending Vinnie into a coma from two serious gunshot wounds. Roger, using his CIA contact, tracks down Aldo, but Aldo accidentally falls off the roof of a building before he can answer any questions. Upset about Vinnie being shot and his wife leaving him, Frank falls into the arms of a pretty CIA agent [played by Melanie Chartoff]. Guest Cast: Aldo Baglia: Robert Mangiardi; Mack Mahoney: Joe Shea

After his munitions operation starts falling apart, Mel orders Vinnie to set up a meet with the mob to use his immense cocaine trade to regain financial power. Still suspicious of Vinnie, Roger has Herb check him out and learns that Vinnie is working for the OCB. Vinnie takes Mel to don Aiuppo, who arranges for the drug trafficking to be overseen by two “third generation” gangsters who will stop at nothing, including threatening Carlotta, to insure the deal doesn’t fall through. Guest Cast: Michael Broad: Peter Yunker; Brandon Castellano: Vito D’Ambrosio

With Herb becoming more insistent about their agenda, Roger schemes to get Mel to fund the military coup of Isle Pavot. Unfortunately, Mel is convinced that Cabra, the man Herb wants to put into power, has put a voodoo curse on him [Mel: “Mu-lat-to dev-il wo-man!”] and orders Vinnie to find a woman who can remove the curse. Realizing that Mel is a major stumbling block to the mission, Roger sends him over the edge by smashing the crystal that contains Mel’s soul. Despondent, Mel asks Susan to kill him, and she does [by fatal injection, then a Viking funeral on Long Island Sound]. Guest Cast: Cabra: Richard Portnow; Iemanja [Maura]: Chalaine Woodard

Susan is arrested for Mel’s murder, and while she’s in jail, she tells Vinnie she’s pregnant with their baby. Roger sets Vinnie up for Mel’s murder, then sets about driving Susan mad [by convincing her Mel is still alive] so he can gain control of her vast fortune to fund the Isle Pavot coup. Frank trails Roger to Herb. Vinnie finds out Susan isn’t pregnant [she’s infertile]. Susan goes insane and has to be institutionalized. Guest Cast: Det. Mulcahy: Ron Dean

With Mel and Susan out of the picture, Frank considers the case closed. However, Vinnie wants to find out where Roger fits into it all and goes to Vancouver to find him, but instead, he witnesses Preet’s murder [Roger’s tongueless Vietnamese housekeeper. He cut it out in Viet Nam and has taken care of her ever since.] and links it to Herb. Frank and Vinnie go to Stockton, where Roger is training mercenaries for the coup. Roger kidnaps Frank and tells Vinnie he’ll be released after the operation, then Vinnie tells Roger that Herb is using him. Roger overhears Leland assuring a major corporation that they can get all the cheap labor they need once he takes over Isle Pavot and realizes the coup is just an excuse for Herb to regain acceptance in Washington. Roger works with Frank and Vinnie to set up Herb and sabotage the coup. Guest Cast: Walker: Denis Arndt; Ciccerone: Frank Manga

Vinnie and Roger are subpoenaed to testify at a Senate hearing concerning Ketcher and the failed overthrow of Isle Pavot, but Vinnie balks at McPike’s orders that he testify as a hood and not as an OCB agent. Roger testifies, then demands to be released from protective custody after an attempt on his life. When Roger is killed in a mysterious boat explosion, Vinnie testifies anonymously and substantiates Roger’s testimony that Herb was responsible foreverything. Abandoned by everyone in Washington, Herb is approached by the Soviet Union [through a whore played by Tracy Lords] to defect, but he kills [shoots] himself instead. Tired of all the lies, Vinnie resigns from the OCB. Roger “reappears” to let Vinnie know he faked his own death to escape the CIA. Guest Cast: Admiral Strichen: Stephen Joyce; Senator Getzloff: Georgann Johnson; Senator Pickering: Ray Stricklyn